A. Renee Art

“Here is the demonstration”–On the Origin of the World

Standing at the edge of a grassy precipice high above a vast city outside a glittering building was a familiar feeling for Norea. The last time she experienced this, she was queen of a whole country. Though it seemed like years ago, in fact, many lifetimes had passed since then. She remembered that life, along with others. It was difficult at first, the thousands of lives and the millions of memories, but like a sophisticated computer, she could easily handle them without them overwhelming her. She even managed to sort them out into categories; by emotion, event, birthplace, even death. There was always one constant, a certain person. She wondered where he was now.

She looked up at the sky. It seemed the same as always, but for years now she contemplated all of existence in the form of multiple layers stacked on top of, next to, and leaning straight and diagonal against each other. Lately, her thoughts shifted to the possibility of a vast expanse of a world above all worlds. Was that the real Heaven? Was he there right now? She could have sworn that someone carried him there. If she could only reach out…

The gold ring on her raised left hand caught the sunlight and momentarily blinded her. In the next second, she recalled her bare feet in the grass, her toes peaking over the edge. Together, they brought her back to where she was.

Above her she saw the partial golden ring-like structure of The Halo. It was enormous, stretching around The Hive, the gold globular building she lived in. Together, they formed a massive, planet-like structure called The Pleroma. She watched as the sunlight hit The Halo, causing it to slightly shift different colors—reds and yellows, then into soft blues and violets, before turning back into the warmer hues. She was high up, almost about to fall, but she had no fear of heights. There was only the feeling of flying just before fading away.

Norea touched her own ring, her right hand lightly moving over the glimmering metal. As she sighed, she thought of what was really on her mind, the dreams. They had become quite bothersome when they occurred. It happened again last night.

In her mind, she could still see him, staring in the direction of The Garden of the Hemispheres after walking through the sliding glass and diamond-like doors of The Hive. She knew the man well enough to know that he would never just suddenly wander, even a few feet. Still, there he was, stepping off the short ivory-colored pathway and onto the grass towards two tall tropical trees. The two trees crossed each other at the top, while the space below created an entryway beckoning the man who stared at it to enter. He was yards away from the entrance when he stopped to look up. Norea finally joined him, staring in the same direction. After a while, she tried to call his name. The shrouded entrance had him in a trance. When she touched his hand, he was surprised to find her next to him. He settled himself and she asked him what hypnotized him so much as they eyed the trees. He confessed that he was not sure.

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Norea told him. “Besides…” She grabbed a patch of grass and dirt and hurled it toward The Garden. An invisible barrier lit up as the dirt clod barely entered through it and fell to the ground. “We can’t enter it anyway.”

The man took her hand, and they walked back onto the ivory pathway returning through the doors. Though he still could not help it and got one last quick glance at it.

Norea was later awake, but kept her eyes closed. Turning over, she thought about the past few hours and grinned to herself. She opened her eyes and treated herself to a beautiful sight. There he was, standing at the window display looking out into the moonlit night. The illusion of a slight breeze coming through blew the transparent ivory curtains around his nude body. To Norea, it was like looking at one of those famous statues from the previous age, like…like…what was it called?

David.

That was it. She was quite certain that the gorgeous scene before her would be just as worthy as David. She wished that she knew how to sculpt, but then decided that it was best to appreciate the subject in real life, especially after sleeping with it.

And appreciate it she did. He stood with one leg in front of the other. He looked in thought about something with one hand on the side of the window. Then he shifted his body slightly. As he did, Norea saw the muscles in his legs twitch. Next, her eyes moved up his torso. She saw his chest move as he breathed in and sighed. He turned his head a little. The moonlight lit his face more, the highlights of his brown hair becoming prominent. She thought that she saw his lips move, but she was occupied by the light in his brown eyes. She made sure though, just in case.

“What did you say,” she asked him. Her lover and partner from many lifetimes turned to her and pointed out of the window.

“In The Garden, there are…” he said. For some reason, his voice became muted, but he was still talking. She asked him again.

“There are…in The Garden,” he repeated. But it was no use. His voice quietly glitched out again. She sat up with a start and tried to read his lips. Where he was muted, he appeared to be saying a single word. She sounded it out for him.

“Angels? There are angels in The Garden?”

His lips continued moving, but this time, Norea could not hear anything he was telling her. A worried expression appeared on his face as he spoke. When she blinked, he vanished from the window. Norea looked around and called out for him. She wanted to go look for him, but a great fear made her stay in bed. Little by little, the room faded around her and she felt herself disappearing. It all happened quickly. As everything around her continued to vanish, she felt a strong force. It seemed to pull at her soul.

When everything was finally gone, there was nothing but darkness. There was neither earth below nor sky above. She knew and felt within herself that she was separated from the man she was just with. This frightened her more than the emptiness surrounding her. It made her miserable, alone, and afraid.

“Where are you,” she screamed into the void.

When there was no answer, she cried until her sight went dark.

That was the dream turned nightmare that startled her awake this morning. It started off as a real memory leading her to the edge of one world peering down at another. Two things were different about her memory recall. One, she woke up crying. She could not remember the last time she cried. In her room, she thought and thought about that man. His face, his voice, his name.

What was his name?

It was a struggle to remember at first, so she tried not to fight so hard. She relaxed and continued to let other memories of him come to her. Finally, she had it and looked up at the chandelier while silently whispering his name to herself like a morning prayer.

The second different thing was that the man spoke, or rather, she could hear what he was saying. Most of her dreams of him were rare and when she did dream of him, she believed that he was trying to tell her something. She came to rely on her dreams and instincts even more since he vanished. It was a mystery, what happened to him, but she promised herself that she would find out. Perhaps it would lead her back to him. Since she was able to finally hear his words, she knew they were important. They called to Norea and echoed inside her mind.

There are…in The Garden.

Her room’s window display showed a beach when she woke up. It was not a true window with a view in a certain direction, just a facsimile. A simulated breeze made the real curtains flanking it flutter, and she could smell a hint of salt. It was twice her height and just as long and it let her see anything outside. Though it was not a real window, she treated it as one, looking out and feeling the wind wrap around her face. She had the option of changing the view. Using her hand as a control to switch it to a certain view and zoom in, she got a clearer look. There were various trees and brightly colored flowers below—parts of a vast garden—and something else. There was a small light. It was in the shadow of some trees, so it was not a reflection from the sun. Peering around it, she saw nothing else.

That was what brought her outside in the first place. But after making the journey from the four-hundred and eightieth floor of The Hive to the ground, Norea wondered why she was doing this, following clues spoken in an old memory to a place where she could not go.

“It isn’t even allowed,” she mumbled to herself.

So she stood at the edge instead, half thinking of what she should do, and half expecting to get caught before doing anything and using that as an excuse to not do anything. Though it had once hypnotized her lover, she did not want to enter, even if he was telling her to. Even if he himself were to suddenly appear there after all this time, she still would not run to him.

So why had she not gone back inside yet?

“To hell with it.”

With that, Norea mustered up the courage to move back from the edge and head for The Garden of the Hemispheres.

It was an enormous place, spanning most of the area in front of the doors of the lower part of The Hive. There was no obvious entrance, save for the one she was looking for, the one with the two tropical trees crossing at the top. She walked slowly along to find that spot, but for some reason, it was not there, seemingly covered by brush. It was strange. In the days before the man she loved disappeared, she had seen the same trees and entrance—beckoning her as it did him—but it was not there now.

Impossible. Tears nearly formed in her eyes, but she fought them back. Her head hung in disappointment, she started to turn around to go back in, but his words rang in her mind again.

There are…in The Garden.

She looked back at The Garden.

“But it isn’t allowed,” she spoke aloud to herself and to him, as if he was next to her. “In The Hive, they said we couldn’t go in. No one can go in.”

The wind went through her, the grass, and the trees of The Garden. It felt like a reply.

“What do you mean, ‘Someone has,’” Norea asked it.

Just as she did back then, she took some dirt and threw it. The barrier was there, just as always. She still thought about going in, and of the consequences, but the image of him would not leave her and she decided that she could explain everything later when she was found out.

Technically, the barrier was not that, but more of an alarm system, so it could not physically keep her out. However, she decided not to take any chances and prepared herself. She was at a good enough distance away. When she was ready, she darted toward it. At the last second, she shielded her face and at the point where she saw the loose piece of ground that she threw, she jumped and tumbled to the ground on her side. Her head hurt, but she had no time to stay where she was to recover. She figured she only had a few minutes, so she dashed into the thick vegetation.

Norea had no idea where she was trying to run to. She slowed her steps remembering that there were most likely no paths here. For a few seconds, she saw nothing. At one point through the treetops, she looked up at The Hive. She could only see the top part of it, something blue. She could not make out what it was, so she tried moving over to get a better look. Taking a step back, she tripped and fell over something into some tall grass.

“Uhhn!”

When she turned and saw what made her fall, she gasped. There was a hand, then a body. She moved in for a closer look. It was a man. She looked around her and saw a woman’s body. They had no clothing on them, but they were still warm, as if they had appeared a few minutes ago.

Norea looked around but there was nothing that could tell her where the couple came from. Other than her footsteps and where she fell, the ground around them remained undisturbed. As she was about to go get help, she thought she heard something. The tall grass rustled nearby.

She knew this was it, so she readied herself. Carefully, she tiptoed towards the waving grass. She patiently waited for the inevitable but was still scared. It could be anything. After all, she had never been in The Garden before. She had never seen an animal around the outside of The Garden, but after stumbling upon two nude humans, anything was possible.

“Who is there,” a voice asked.

Norea relaxed her guard and let out a sigh of relief. From where she came from, two beings emerged. They were nine-foot-tall humanoid beings with hair the color of light fiery golden haloes, and beautiful. Even after knowing them for years, Norea stood in awe, partially because of their sudden appearance and stature, but also because of the situation she was in.

“Ananiel, Batariel,” she addressed them.

“Norea,” Batariel sighed as he drew near.

“I assume everyone else is scrambling because of me, huh?”

“Yes, there was an alarm, but why are you—?”

“Batariel, look,” Ananiel said, pointing behind Norea. “What—Who are they? How—?”

Ananiel and Batariel knelt near the unconscious couple. They looked over them then looked back at Norea as if asking her what was going on.

“I just found them,” she told them. “I don’t know how they got in.”

After exchanging looks with Batariel, Ananiel said, “I will send for help,” and got up to leave.

“Armaros,” Norea asked.

“Armaros is still looking after Juliet. Given what you did just now, and what is occurring below us, Samyazaa also needs to see them.”

As Ananiel left, Norea asked Batariel, “Did it come back again?”

“After The Garden’s sensors went off,” he explained, “a second alarm sounded.” They could hear sounds of rumbling beneath them, but the ground they were on did not move. “We cannot wait. These two need to go in now.”

The rumbling noise ceased and was soon replaced by muffled yells, screams, and shouts from below. Time was running out.

“Stay with them,” Batariel instructed Norea. “I will go wait for Ananiel in front of the trees.”

He left Norea alone with the two unknown people again. The woman was laying on her side in a slight fetal position. The man was on his stomach with arms out to the sides of his head. Norea went to turn him over so he could breathe better. She was alone, but she did not let that stop her from trying. It took her a few seconds, along with some grunting, but she got him onto his back. She stood and took a few breaths to calm her racing heart. As she was about to rest in some nearby grass, she stepped back and fell again.

Sitting up, she felt something smooth, a blue object. She moved back leaves and dirt to reveal a flat blue stone. Next to the stone was another one just like it, then another. Upon standing, she saw other blue stones forming a pathway. The path led further into the deep part of The Garden. She began taking a few steps to see where the path was going to, but she heard noises from the outside and Batariel calling behind her.

“Norea,” he shouted. Ananiel and Batariel returned and a third was with them.

“Armaros,” Norea called her. “Thank goodness.”

Though she looked young, Armaros had grey eyes matching her long grey hair and dark skin. She had the concerned look of a caretaker. Seeing the two unknowns on the ground gave her the same shocked expression as Ananiel and Batariel had earlier. She squatted next to them to look them over.

“And you found them,” she asked Norea.

“Yeah.”

“They are still asleep. Unbelievable. I have stretchers waiting, so let us get them inside. Batariel and Ananiel, carry the male. Norea, help me with the female.”

Two other tall beings stood with the stretchers, which levitated a couple of feet off the ground, just outside of The Garden. The group got the new patients onto them, and everyone raced back into The Hive.

To be continued…

That’s the preview. The rest is on my Patreon. Click the Aeon (the pictured blue creature) to go to my page. Subscribe to read the story. There is also some art and character sheets as well. Thanks!